As part of a two-year project that examined the processes by which children initially approach the reading task, the second phase of a preliminary study was devised that modified the pretest, the instructional modes and format, the sequence and amount of information presented in the instructional sessions, and the procedures for testing and…

A study was conducted to determine the relationship between fourteen social process variables (relating to perinatal events, early language patterns, parental/home environment, and child behavior patterns) and the reading performance of retarded readers. The subjects were 180 children, aged seven through fifteen, randomly selected from among…

Noting that a study of semantics can inform teachers' understanding of the reading process, this paper describes seven basic types of meaning, illustrates how the interrelatedness of meanings within a semantic field may be shown, and discusses children's acquisition of semantic fields. It cites research into the development of semantic fields in…

This book reviews the research literature relevant to the language experience approach to the teaching of reading, in which instruction is based upon the use of reading materials created by writing down children's spoken language. The first major section provides a narrative review of the research studies, organized, for the most part,…

Tests for prereading skills of Israeli kindergarten children were developed and tested on a wide range of socioeconomic levels. Based on studies in the United States and Israel, tests were developed for letter matching, rhyming, sound matching, and letter recognition. Results from 178 kindergarten children led to a division of the letter matching…

The studies reported in this document reflect the interests and concerns of reading and language arts teachers. Topics of the 10 studies were: a comparison of basal and individualized reading approaches to vocabulary acquisition of fourth graders, a comparison of a formal reading program and an informal general readiness program in kindergarten,…

The first section of this annotated bibliography is a selected review of research on the effects of volunteer tutoring programs. Reviews of 34 studies note the number, level, and type of students; type of tutors; area of U.S.; length, frequency, and duration of tutoring sessions; and achievement and other results of the tutoring programs.…

This is a report on the evaluation of the Reading Strategy Project operated in 46 public and eight non-public schools during the 1974-75 regular school year. This project served 7,698 pupils. The design of the instructional format of the Reading Strategy Project was one which utilized a criterion-referenced diagnostic reading test, locally…

The major purpose of this investigation was to determine the relative efficacy of two methods of teaching reading in a college learning-improvement project. Seventy students from undergraduate psychology classes were divided into two instructional groups and one control group. It was hypothesized that subjects receiving modified paperback scanning…

This study was designed to determine statistically whether the prolonged use of three prepared reading readiness activities has any influence on seventh-grade students' abilities to read unfamiliar literature; which of the readiness activities is most influential on students' abilities; and whether or not longevity of such influence exists. The…

This conference report contains the following papers: "Ability versus Knowledge in Testing Educational Achievement" and "Knowledge vs. Ability in Achievement Testing," by Robert L. Ebel; "A Four-Domain Taxonomy for Classifying Educational Tasks and Objectives," by Bruce W. Tuckman; "On the Social Psychology of the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Further…

Group and individual informal reading inventories have brought about considerable improvement over standardized reading tests in the placement of students at their proper reading levels. Parents and school administrators want more individualization, however, so a comparatively effective, but quicker, test is needed. A combination of "cloze"…

This study was designed to explore the role of the syntax of beginning readers' spoken language in their reading performance. In order to be able to isolate and manipulate the syntactic variable, two alternative forms of English, Standard English and Black English, were used. Sixty second-grade children participated in the study. Each child was…

The effect of teacher expectations on first graders' reading-achievement levels was the focus of this investigation. An original instrument was devised to measure the degree to which teachers believed that certain factors influence reading achievement. Thirty-two teachers were divided into two groups: sixteen teachers who frequently agreed with…

A kindergarten pre-reading program was designed based upon Piagetian and Montessorian theory. During the pilot study, pre-reading experiences, materials and games were created to encourage individual diagnosis and specific pre-reading skills assessment. The following year the investigator conducted a descriptive study of the program's…